29 September 2009

...one of those "documentaries" about what a racist hellhole Canada has turned out to be... I dare you...

Hospitals were flooded with patients on Tuesday and the death toll rose through the day after presidential guard troops opened fire on 50,000 people at the main football stadium. Some of those at the rally, upset that a military officer who seized power in a December coup might run for president in January elections, had chanted: "We want true democracy."

Then Capt. Moussa "Dadis" Camara's presidential guard opened fire with live ammunition, scattering panicked demonstrators who left scores of dead behind. Opposition politician Mutarr Diallo said he witnessed soldiers raping women with rifle butts. Camara, the coup leader who was not present at the stadium, said the violence was beyond his control.

Since winning independence half a century ago from France, Guinea has been pillaged by its ruling elite. Its 10 million people are among the world's poorest, even though its soil has diamonds, gold, iron and half the world's reserves of the raw material used to make aluminum.